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''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' is a TV Series that ran from 1992 to 1996 . A form of " Edutainment ," the 44 episode series explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones . The series primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery as Indy aged 16-20, but also includes several episodes with Corey Carrier as Indy aged 8-10. George Hall also played Indy at age 93 for the bookends of each episode. The show was created and executive produced by George Lucas , who was also behind the Indiana Jones feature films. PRODUCTION During the production of the Indiana Jones feature films, the cast and crew frequently questioned creator George Lucas about the Indiana Jones character's life growing up. During the concept stages of '' Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade '', Lucas and director Steven Spielberg decided to reveal some of this backstory in the film's opening scenes. For these scenes, Lucas chose River Phoenix to portray the character, as Harrison Ford believed that Phoenix most resembled Ford as a young man (Phoenix had previously appeared as Ford's son in '' The Mosquito Coast ''). This decision to reveal an adventure of a young Indiana led Lucas and crew to the idea of creating the series. Harrison Ford was originally offered the role of the older Indiana Jones (which eventually went to George Hall ), but he turned it down, it is said, because he thought television had nothing to offer his career; however, Ford appeared as a middle-aged Indy (age 50) in the episode "The Mystery of the Blues," which aired in March 1993. For the brief appearance as the middle-aged Indiana, Harrison sported a beard. This is because he was filming '' The Fugitive '' (1993) at the time his scenes were shot, and he didn't have time to shave it. River Phoenix , who played young Indy (aged 13) in ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'', was originally offered the title role in the series, but turned it down, because he did not want to return to television. It was originally planned that after ''The Last Crusade'', a second trilogy would be made with Phoenix as the young Indiana Jones and Ford as Henry Jones Sr. (effectively playing his own father). It became increasingly difficult for all parties to fully realize a second trilogy and so a TV series was thought of as the next best thing and a way to test if a prequel set of films could work; however, Phoenix's untimely death in 1993 changed all that. The series was unusual in that it was shot on location around the world. Partly to offset the cost of this, the series was shot on 16mm Film , rather than 35 . The series was designed so that each pair of episodes could either be broadcast separately, or as a 2-hour film-length episode. Each episode cost about $1.5 million and the filming with Young Indy usually took around 3 weeks. The first production filming alternated between "Sean" and "Corey" episodes. The segments with old Indy were referred to as "bookends." Filming a pair of them typically took a day and most were shot at Carolco Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina and on location in Wilmington. The show also featured footage from other films spliced into several episodes. A wide variety of filmmakers both wrote and directed many episodes of the series, including such high-profile names as Frank Darabont , Nicolas Roeg , Mike Newell , Deepa Mehta , Joe Johnston , Jonathan Hensleigh , Terry Jones , Simon Wincer , Carrie Fisher and Vic Armstrong . George Lucas was given with a 'Story By' credit in many episodes, along with his input as a creative consultant. Paul Freeman , who played Rene Belloq in '' Raiders Of The Lost Ark '', portrayed an unrelated character named Frederick Selous in a couple of episodes. Additionally, the late William Hootkins (Major Eaton from ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'') played Russian ballet producer Sergei Diaghilev in "Barcelona, May 1917". The black horse Sean rode in the Pilot episode was called "Hurricane" and was the same black horse Harrison Ford rode in the Indiana Jones movies. In some of the new additional scenes that were shot in 1996 with Corey Carrier, digital techniques were used to shrink Corey to make him appear younger. STORY The series was designed as an educational program for children, spotlighting historical figures and important events, using the concept of a prequel to the films as a draw. Most episodes feature a standard formula of an elderly (94-year-old) Indiana Jones (played by George Hall ) in present day ( 1993 ) New York City encountering people who spur him to reminisce and tell stories about his past adventures. These stories would either involve him as a young boy (10, played by Corey Carrier ) or as a teenager (17, played by Sean Patrick Flanery ). In one episode, a fifty-year-old Indy (played by Harrison Ford ) is seen reminiscing. Initially, the plan was for the series to alternate between the adventures of Indy as a child ( Corey Carrier ) and as a teenager ( Sean Patrick Flanery ), but eventually the episodes featuring Flanery's version of the character dominated the series. The series revealed that the elderly Jones has a daughter, and a grandson named Spike. Many of the episodes involve Indiana meeting and working with famous historical figures. Historical figures featured on the show include Leo Tolstoy , Pancho Villa , Charles De Gaulle , and John Ford , in such diverse locations as Egypt , Austria-Hungary , India , China , and the whole of Europe . For example, ''Curse of the Jackal'' prominently involves Indy in the adventures of T. E. Lawrence and Pancho Villa . Indy also encounters (in no particular order) Pablo Picasso , Eliot Ness , Charles De Gaulle , Al Capone , Norman Rockwell (same episode as Picasso ) Louis Armstrong , Winston Churchill , and Sigmund Freud ; At one point, he competes against a young Ernest Hemingway for the affections of a girl, is nursed back to health by Albert Schweitzer , and goes on a safari with Theodore Roosevelt . The show provided a lot of the back story for the films. His relationship with his father, first introduced in ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'', was further fleshed out with stories about his travels with his father as a young boy. His original hunt for the ''Eye of the Peacock'', a large diamond seen in ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'', was a recurring element in several stories. The show also chronicled his activities during World War I and his first solo adventures. CAST Main characters
Historical figures
EPISODES See Also: List of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episodes The pilot episode was aired by ABC in the United States in March 1992. For the pilot, the episodes "Egypt, May 1908" and "Mexico, March 1916" were edited together to form the Television Movie ''Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal''. Eleven further hour-long episodes were aired in 1992 (seven in the first season, four were part of the second season). Only 16 of the remaining 20 episodes were aired in 1993 when ABC cancelled the show. USA Network later broadcast the unaired episodes and also produced eight more episodes (each part of two-part television movies, making four TV movies) that were broadcast in 1994 -1996. Listed below are all 44 episodes of the series, organized by story chronology: The revised and updated edition of the book ''George Lucas The Creative Impulse'', by Charles Champlin, explains how ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' series would be re-edited into the new structure of twenty-two ''Chapter'' TV films, for the 1999 VHS release. New footage was shot in 1996 to be incorporated with the newly re-edited and re-titled "chapters" to better help it chronologically and filmicly. Two Indy segments shot, which were ''Tangiers, 1908'' and ''Morocco, 1917'' is explained that, ''Morocco, 1917'' is joined with ''Northern Italy, 1918'' (now re-dated as ''1917'') to form ''Tales of Innocence''. As Rick McCallum indicated, the new Corey Carrier segment, ''Tangiers'', goes with the ''Egypt'' segment of the original ''Curse of The Jackal'', but the title is now ''My First Adventure''. The original pilot, ''Young Indiana Jones and The Curse of The Jackal'' is no more. As stated ''Egypt'' is now a part of ''My First Adventure'', and ''Mexico'' has been hooked up with ''Princeton, 1916'' to form ''Spring Break Adventure''. The 93-year-old Indy bookends for the original series are gone, an implicit Retcon against George Hall's sequences. Also gone is Sean Patrick Flanery's bookend for ''Travels With Father''. It would seem that bookend was dropped so that it could be expanded into the second half of ''Winds Of Change''. Even with all these bookends cut, Harrison Ford is still in ''The Mystery of The Blues''. The 1999 collection also included the four episodes that were made for the ABC network that never aired. Including ''Florence, May 1908'', ''Prague, Aug. 1917'', ''Transylvania, Jan. 1918'', and ''Palestine, 1917'' (note that the dates of these episodes have changed to be a part of the collection). ''Palestine'' may end up as the most interesting as it has been made into a film of its own, versus the one-hour version that aired in Europe. As stated above ''Tangiers, 1908'' and ''Morocco, 1917'' were filmed just for this collection. Finally, the little bit of ''Princeton, 1919'' that was shown in the Family Channel's airing of Young Indiana Jones Travels With Father, was actually a part of its own one-hour story now combined with ''Paris, May 1919''. RELEASE Television Home video The series received its first home video release on April 21 , 1993 , when a Laserdisc box set was released in Japan containing fifteen of the earlier episodes and a short documentary on the making of the series. The discs were formatted in NTSC and presented with English audio in Dolby surround with Japanese subtitles. In 1994, eight NTSC format VHS tapes with a total of fifteen episodes from the first two seasons were released in Japan. On October 26 , 1999 , half of the series was released on VHS in the United States for $14.99 each, along with a box set of the feature films. The idea was that the series and films made up "the complete adventures of Indiana Jones", and they were marketed as such; The series was labeled as Chapters 1-22, while the films were labeled as Chapters 23-25. In an effort to promote the series, ''Treasure of the Peacock's Eye'' was included with the purchase of the film trilogy box set. As a result, while the other videos are often expensive and difficult to find, multiple copies of ''Peacock'' can often be found at many thrift stores for low prices. The twelve VHS releases were released worldwide over the course of the year 2000, including the U.K., Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Mexico, France, and Japan. The UK and Netherland tapes were in PAL format, while the tapes released in the rest of the countries were in NTSC format. In 2002, series producer Rick McCallum confirmed in an interview with Variety that DVDs of the series were in development, but would not be released for "about three or four years".1 Lucasfilm has confirmed that a DVD release of the complete series is scheduled. At a press conference, series producer Rick McCallum explained that he expects there to be 22 DVDs in all, which, in addition to the series, will include around 100 documentaries which explore the real-life historical aspects that are fictionalized in the show. For the DVDs, Lucasfilm upgraded the picture quality of the original 16mm prints and re-did the soundtracks. In addition to this, the project took so long because of efforts to get best quality masters and bonus materials on the sets.http://www.starwars.com/hyperspace/member/audiocast/audio/SW_dvdpressevent_02_2005-10-07.mp3 Lucas and McCallum hope that the DVDs will be helpful to schools, as they believe the series is a good way to aid in teaching history. Lucas explained that the series' DVD release will be shopped as "films for a modern day high school history class."http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/An_Evening_With_George_Lucas_104051.asp He believes the series is a good way to teach high school students 20th Century history.http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117960483.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&query=george+lucas If all goes well, the plan is to tie the DVD release of the series to the theatrical release of '' Indiana Jones 4 '', which is currently in production.http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=4266http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=37242 After five years in production, in a 2007 interview with ''Star Wars'' fan site Tochestation.nl, McCallum stated that the "first set" of the series is expected to be released around Christmas of 2007—although he could not confirm the exact date or any other details.http://www.toschestation.nl/interviews/interview-rickmccallum.php The History Channel has acquired television rights to all 94 of the DVD historical documentaries.3 The airing of the documentaries is meant to bring in ratings for the history channel and serve as marketing for the DVD release and the theatrical release of ''Indiana Jones 4''.4 On July 10, 2007, Paramount Home Entertainment (through CBS DVD , whose cousin production company predecessor, Paramount Television , partnered with Lucasfilm on the series) announced that the series will be released in three volumes on DVD, with the first set currently set to be released on October 23, 2007.http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=7634 However, at ''Star Wars'' Celebration Europe, Rick McCallum stated that the first DVDs will be released on October 13th.http://starwarsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/14/rick-mccallum-talks-live-action-tv-series-and-star-wars-3-d/#more-162 Since the 13th is on a Saturday, this was deemed by some to be unlikely.http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=7679 StarWars.com finally confirmed October 23, 2007 as the correct first date, while giving December 18, 2007 as the release date for the second volume, and Spring 2008 as the planned release date for the third volume.http://www.starwars.com/community/news/films/f20070827/index.html REACTION From 1992 to 1994, the series was nominated for twenty-three Emmy Awards and won ten. In 1993, Corey Carrier was nominated for the Young Artist Award in the category of "Best Young Actor Starring in a Television Series". In 1994, David Tattersall was nominated for the ASC Award in the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Regular Series". At the 1994 Golden Globes, the series was nominated for "Best TV-Series - Drama".http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103586/awards MARKETING Four volumes of music from the series were released on CD. The show also spawned a series of adaptations and spin-off novels, a video game for the Sega Genesis , Trading Card s and other products. DOCUMENTARIES In addition to the ninety-four historical documentaries presented on the DVDs, three documentaries have been made which deal with the show:
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